It's been a decade since I've played the game in MP, but I always enjoyed the feature. Let's see if I can get his straight.
Alien Life Cycle was a server side option. When on, it meant you could spawn as a facehugger and go hunt down your victim. Facehuggers had big advantages... They're relatively small, fast and difficult to hit. So, mobility was a big factor to a hugger's survival.
Once a victim had been ganked by hugger, they would fall to the ground and become inert, apparently dead. This would be the case for a few seconds, then the fallen body would arch its back and the Player would spawn as a chestburster. 'Bursters of course were small and had the advantage of speed and that's about it. Their biggest problem was other Human or Pred Players would camp on sites where other dead Players had been recently facehugged thus scoring a quick and fast kill on the freshly emerged Alien.
If you survived such encounters you could run off and morph into a full size adult Alien. Then you could turn the tables and become the hunter. Later, if the server kills threshold was met, you could become a Queen. and that was always fun! The Queen's tail was lethal, sure, but the Bitch was a massive target and easily taken down at range by multiple Players.
There's a really cool strategy when playing TDM with the life cycle on. Playiing as a team of facehuggers, always roam the map together and let one facehugger gank a victim. Then, have the other hugger hide nearby. Sooner or later someone will come along, see the facehugged body and expect an easy kill. What they won't expect is the 2nd hugger coming out of concealment to slap them in the face and shove a boner down their neck. Always fun at (LAN) parties.
Another good strategy was to wait until a human or Pred player entered a darkened area and then gank them. The chances of you being spotted are reduced (Notwithstanding vision modes, of course.)
Finally, the kind of Alien you became was dependent upon what class you ganked. Marines became Drones. Mercs became Runners. Preds became Predaliens. This was sooo cool! The inclusion of the Life Cycle meant Aliens had an additional 3 playable classes (Hugger, 'Burster and Queen.) added to their existing roster of 4 thus making the total playable number of classes in the game up to 19.
I don't think there's too much to change, really. I'm sure that some mods tweak the feature, but there's not a lot you would want. Maybe have an intermediate morphing of the Praetorian between the Drone and Queen, but nothing too dramatic was needed.
Fun mode. Must play.
-Windebieste.
